Plants of the genus Musa, including banana plants as well as plantain plants, are herbs, with a main stem below the soil surface, called a corm, and only the leaves and fruits above the ground in the form of a sheath, called a pseudo stem. A banana plant flowers around six months after a new planting. The flower replaces the last leaf of the pseudo stem and no more leaves emerge as the flower stem comes from the corm. The flower emerges and becomes a fruit bunch. Fruit is harvested from such agricultural fruit crops about three months after flowering.
When the fruit bunch is harvested, the entire leaf cluster and the fruit is harvested off the main pseudo stem and much of the pseudo stem is left in place. It is common to cut the pseudo stem down to approximately 1 to 2 m from the soil surface. This remaining pseudo stem is often referred to as a caballo, the Spanish word for horse. The plant that flowers and bears a fruit bunch is often referred to as a mother plant. When the mother plant is bearing a fruit bunch, a new plant typically emerges next to the mother plant and grows out of the corm and is often referred to as a daughter plant. This daughter plant is an adjoining offspring of the mother plant. Banana plants can live and produce fruits for several generations in this manner. It is not unusual to produce up to 20 generations of plants from a single planting.
Nutrients, such as potassium (K), often in the form of potassium chloride (KCl) fertilizers, are typically applied on the ground for banana plants in a circle approximately 30 cm around the pseudo stem. For example, potassium chloride may be applied at a rate of around 800-1000 kg per year per hectare for 2,000 plants planted in one hectare. The total application is typically divided into 10 applications of 50 kg every 30-35 days. This translates into approximately 50 grams of potassium chloride every application for each banana plant.
It is well known that when fertilizers are applied to the ground to feed the plants, a significant amount of these fertilizers are not used by the plants. It has been estimated that if the pH of the soil is 7, then the plants are able to use about 20% of the fertilizers applied. If the pH is 5, then the plants able to use only about 10% of the fertilizers applied. Farmers often use lime to neutralize the soil to a pH of 7 to be able to allow more of the fertilizers to be absorbed by the plant. The fertilizers applied to the ground are water soluble and available to the plants. However, these soluble nutrients often become bound up with the soil, or are washed away by rainfall, and therefore become unavailable for uptake by the plant.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,372,238, issued Apr. 16, 2002 to Rajamannan describes direct injection of nutrients and other agricultural chemicals in the fertilization and treatment of banana and plantain plants prior to harvest. These chemicals are injected into the pseudo stem of the fruit-bearing plants. Such direct injection facilitates an improvement in the availability of nutrients and other agricultural chemicals to the fruit-bearing plants over soil or foliar application.
As the cost of nutrients and other agricultural chemicals continue to rise, efficient use of the chemicals becomes increasingly important. Furthermore, improving the efficiency of these agricultural chemicals also reduces the environmental impact of the agricultural operation.
For the reasons stated above, and for other reasons which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the present specification, there is a need in the art for alternative approaches to providing nutrients to plants of the genus Musa. 